In the past few years, the abuse of prescription oral narcotics has grown at an alarming rate. These narcotics are often addictive and abused by patients who may take the medication more frequently than their prescribed rate. Such abuse can lead to severe medical problems for the abuser and can result in death, due to overdosing or extended exposure to the narcotics. Programs designed to treat and prevent such abuse costs society millions of dollars annually. For these reason, physicians are often reluctant to prescribe narcotics to individuals who may need them.
While many types of pill dispensers are known in the art, none limit pill dispensing to a prescribed rate, while reducing the chance for patient abuse of the prescribed medication. Therefore, the need exists for a dispenser that dispenses pills no faster than a prescribed rate and detects tampering with the dispenser. The need also exists for a dispenser that, in the event of user tampering, renders the pills impotent thereby reducing the chance of abuse by the patient. Additional aspects, advantages and other novel features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description that follows and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the foregoing or may be learned with the practice of the invention.